And things like vertical bifacial solar panels can work especially amazingly on grazing land that isn't suitable for crops.

Counter-intuitive as they may look, they actually have a number of benefits:

1. The panels face east and west, meaning they generate peak power in the morning and evening, which corresponds to peak demand => less need for energy storage to bridge the gap between the mid-day peak in production from traditional PV and the aforementioned morning and evening demand peaks.
2. The panels are vertical, which makes them easier and cheaper to maintain, as dust, snow, and rain naturally shed from their surfaces.
3. The panels get less direct energy during mid-day, keeping their surfaces cooler. Turns out cooler solar panels are more efficient at converting light energy into electrical energy.
4. The arrangement lends itself very naturally to agrivoltaics, which means you can derive more yields from a given piece of land and use less land overall than if you had segregated uses.
5. The compatibility with agrivoltaics allows farmers to diversify their incomes streams and/or become energy self-sufficient.

Plus, why do people act like the "incumbent advantage" is some magical advantage? It's a cargo cult mentality, especially in this day and age where all the old "rules" about elections have gone out the window.

I mean, I remember the day where being twice-impeached and a convicted felon would be unrecoverable political death, yet here we are staring down the barrel of a possible second Trump term.

Biden is a historically unpopular president, who is behind in basically all polling in basically every key swing state, and who just had the mother of all "the emperor has no clothes" moments on national television, losing the confidence of his own base. Even Democratic congresspeople are calling on him to step down now.

There is simply no path forwards for Biden to win in November. He's cooked.

As for replacements, personally, I think Gretchen Whitmer is the best choice. Relatively young, good compromise candidate between the progressive and moderate wings of the party, current beloved governor of Michigan (key swing state!), competent technocrat, no significant political baggage, and made a name for herself protecting abortion rights in Michigan after SCOTUS overturned Roe v. Wade.

Is the GOP actually the ones wanting us to replace Biden at the moment? If anything, there's a very good reason to believe the GOP would want Biden to remain: he's a quite unpopular president for whom the overwhelming majority of Americans have concerns about his age and mental fitness. Further, he has a ton of political baggage, and is highly contentious amongst Democrats.

Personally, I genuinely think Gretchen Whitmer (with Pete Buttigieg as running mate) would be much more likely to win in November, at least according to post-debate polling from this leaked internal memo: https://puck.news/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/SUNDAY_Post-Debate_Landscape_2024_06_30__1_-1.pdf

Leaked internal memo with post-debate polling data showing a strong preference for Biden alternatives (especially Whitmer and Buttigieg) in key swing states: https://puck.news/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/SUNDAY_Post-Debate_Landscape_2024_06_30__1_-1.pdf

The problem is tons of free parking everywhere needlessly sprawls out our cities, makes people drive further, and makes actual green methods of transit (like walking, cycling, and electrified public transit) less viable.

In the long term, maintaining car dependency is fundamentally incompatible with addressing the climate crisis. Removing mandatory parking minimums is a necessary step towards ending car dependency.

Silvopasture is an ancient practice that integrates trees and pasture into a single system for raising livestock. Pastures with trees sequester five to 10 times as much carbon as those of the same size that are treeless while maintaining or increasing productivity and providing a suite of additional benefits. Livestock continue to emit the greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide, but these are more than offset by carbon sequestration, at least until soil carbon saturation is achieved.

Silvopasture also offer financial benefits for farmers and ranchers. Livestock, trees, and other forest products, such as nuts, fruit, and mushrooms, generate income on different time horizons. And help protect farmers from risk. The health and productivity of both animals and the land improve.

https://drawdown.org/solutions/silvopasture

Trees in silvopasture systems provide livestock with protection from sun and wind, which can increase animal comfort and improve production. Trees can provide shade in the summer and windbreaks in the winter, allowing livestock to moderate their own temperature. Heat stress in livestock has been associated with decreased feed intake, increased water intake, and negative effects on production, reproductive health, milk yields, fitness, and longevity.[4][5]

Certain tree types can also serve as fodder for livestock. Trees may produce fruit or nuts that can be eaten by livestock while still on the tree or after they have fallen. The leaves of trees may serve as forage as well, and silvopasture managers can utilize trees as forage by felling the tree so that it can be eaten by livestock, or by using coppicing or pollarding to encourage leaf growth where it is accessible to livestock.[1]

Well-managed silvopasture systems can produce as much forage as open-pasture systems under favorable circumstances. Silvopasture systems have also been observed to produce forage of higher nutritive quality than non-silvopasture forage under certain conditions. Increased forage availability has been observed in silvopasture systems compared to open-pasture systems under drought conditions, where the combination of shade from trees and water uptake from tree roots may reduce drought impacts.[1]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvopasture

Exactly. I'm just trying to reframe dumb NIMBY policies like restrictive zoning and mandatory parking minimums as anti-freedom so as to try to get conservative NIMBYs to maybe be just a little less NIMBY.

Absolutely no one is seriously arguing we allow PFAS chemical plants next to kindergartens or that we remove all building safety codes. Just that restrictive zoning (and other NIMBY land use policies) is stupid, harmful, and we should get rid of it.

The right to a bicycle shall not be infringed

just a frame, a chain,

two wheels, and grease

Kinda tempts me to photoshop a RAM PRIDE or FORD PRIDE ad for pride month

Excellent point, brother. Always choose AMERICAN MUSCLE over COMMIE OIL.